OPINIONS.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 195, 13 September 1888, Page 2

OPINIONS.

(CoNTniBUTED.) “LOOK ON THIS PICTURE 1" " Thu Latin language was created for the purl pose of conferring honorary degrees so said one of the speakers on that gay occasion the other month at the city of Cambridge, England. Perhaps it is not far from the truth, when one roads over the high-falutin, tromboning balderdash uttered with a gravity at once ludicrous and unreal. No other conclusion presents itself to plain English-speak, ing people, than that it is a relic of the oon> trol of common sense; thus, at such hypo, critical gatherings to hide hollowness of heart under the convenient, however ill. fitting, cloak of a dead language. Each dootor and recipient of degrees honorary, arrayed in scarlet robes, and the chief aotor in the farce, we are told, was arrayed in the gorgeous robes of office; and the eldest son of th# Prince of Wales was there to receive his honorary degree. May one be so hold, so unmannerly. Mr Editor, as to ask, For what has the Imperial Highness received the degree ? Wc wish you to tell—that is, if you are in the secret—what has the poor lad done? The degree was wrapped up in vowels without end, making in the delivery a thundering row: however, we must not be too censorious He got his degree of L.L.D., and a scarlet petticoat ; which pleased the ladies most ? And no on through a long list of grandees, pier id, flattered, made much of; it was exquis.lely heathenish in conception, in literary, or rather, classic, allusion and quotation,Homer, Virgil, Lucretius, Horace, Sophocles; aye, and even Neptune himself, were quoted, evoked, and held up as ornaments, guides, patterns, and leaders whose gospels of graceful expression were taken as the models upon which these English alphabetically-designed neophytes were to frame and form their lives by. It was an exquisitely heathenish exhibition throughout, and Christian England, Christian Cambridge especially, will do well to be profoundly ashamed of such rampant folly.

LOOK ON THAT PICTpRE AND ON THIS. A Committee of the House of Lords, Earl Dunraven presiding; workmen, clergymen, contractors, sweaters, cabinet-makers, tailors, etcetera:—giving, very generally mainly uncontradietive evidences concerning that fun. goid growth—know as “ the sweating system." What a terrible name 1 •• In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread, until thou return to the ground.” Look around on the grand surroundings of this lordly and stately chamber where this saddening enquiry is held I rich, rare, and costly; are they pained at heart while listening to the words of these hard-fisted sons of toil? Let us trust that their English hearts are pained and that they . will devise and order a better state of thingM for the suffering sweattee. Girls working] from 8 o’clock in the morning to 7 or 8 aty night for 2s a week. One farthing and one third of a farthing per hour of sixty long and weary minutes. Colonial girls, only think of it. “ Only," said an employer—” only that day a poor Jew kissed my hand because I promised him work for next week." Another said: —“ In the sweating dens, men and women, were kept to labour in some instances —hurried times—till two o'clock in the morning, and he had seen them at work again at seven on the same morning.!’ Query, not at all an unlikely question—wonder if those scarlet robes worn at the Cambridge flapdood. lings we made by these British slaves I— most probable, most possible. It is awful, it is heart bieaking to be told that the girls employed in making up the copies of the Bible such as folding, stitching, wiring, etc,, are the most miserably paid of any; and this by such respectable firms as the •' British and Foreign," and its kindred associates, in the work of disseminating the order of God, who says, ll Love thy neighbor as thyself." Exactly so, som* of these Scripture and religious book publishers are evidently turning over a bandsome profit; as one said before thfl Dunraven committee; ” engaged in the drass-trimmihg trade, we turned over £250,000 to £BOO,OOO per annum, and our payments in wages were not more ithan £4,000 a year.” Someone must be fattening on the work of these toilers, A melancholy picture this; yes, most pitiable We anxiously await the decision of the Lords'